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- Thread starter Jerry8-10
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Tiger
Active Member
Interesting article Simon, I presume that was penned by Peter Gourlay who was STTBA media liason officer back in those days.
The scores may have changed, there may be no more hour-long waiting lists for lanes now, the techs do a stirling job these day mostly, but some things never change.
I see they wanted a 32-lane centre there at Moonah, and another one built on the Eastern Shore to compete with it.
They would've filled a 32-laner back in '77 not only through league play, but during social play as well, that shows just how far the game's gone down the crapper since then, but when you charge what AMF do for games and food/drink now days, it's totally expected.
The biggest mistake they ever made in building a centre on the Eastern Shore was building it in a low socio-economic, housing commission area like the Mornington/Warrane area, along a dingey back road near a feral pub known for violent incidents, with very little other services around to take advantage of passing trade.
They made several name changes to Mornington throughout the years to gloss it up a bit, to make it sound more accomodating to the general public, but the area had a stigma about it back then, and aside from its honeymoon period when it first opened where it attracted a lot of disgruntled Moonah players who were tired of the same rundown, antiquated facilities and poor scores, and take-take-take attitude from AMF at the time, it was generally never that successful and floundered financially, especially after AMF finally spent some money on Moonah only 6 months after Mornington opened in order to woo back lost bowlers.
Having said that, I quite liked Mornington, a great little centre.
The old entrance and part of the carpark at Mornington, now Citygate Baptist Church, also painted a violet and yellow colour now.
Originally it was planned to build the bowl on top of Eastlands Shopping Centre, which - as it is now - was extrememly busy, and would've got a lot of trade from people coming to the area.
But for whatever reason, cost-cutting perhaps, Charles Martin Construction built it in Mornington, and the Eastlands centre never happened.
If we ever experiened an upswing in bowler numbers again to the point where we had 1500+ registered bowlers again (its about 400 at present), and social play became affordable to everybody, I wonder where you'd build a second centre in Hobart? Kingston perhaps?
The scores may have changed, there may be no more hour-long waiting lists for lanes now, the techs do a stirling job these day mostly, but some things never change.
I see they wanted a 32-lane centre there at Moonah, and another one built on the Eastern Shore to compete with it.
They would've filled a 32-laner back in '77 not only through league play, but during social play as well, that shows just how far the game's gone down the crapper since then, but when you charge what AMF do for games and food/drink now days, it's totally expected.
The biggest mistake they ever made in building a centre on the Eastern Shore was building it in a low socio-economic, housing commission area like the Mornington/Warrane area, along a dingey back road near a feral pub known for violent incidents, with very little other services around to take advantage of passing trade.
They made several name changes to Mornington throughout the years to gloss it up a bit, to make it sound more accomodating to the general public, but the area had a stigma about it back then, and aside from its honeymoon period when it first opened where it attracted a lot of disgruntled Moonah players who were tired of the same rundown, antiquated facilities and poor scores, and take-take-take attitude from AMF at the time, it was generally never that successful and floundered financially, especially after AMF finally spent some money on Moonah only 6 months after Mornington opened in order to woo back lost bowlers.
Having said that, I quite liked Mornington, a great little centre.
The old entrance and part of the carpark at Mornington, now Citygate Baptist Church, also painted a violet and yellow colour now.
Originally it was planned to build the bowl on top of Eastlands Shopping Centre, which - as it is now - was extrememly busy, and would've got a lot of trade from people coming to the area.
But for whatever reason, cost-cutting perhaps, Charles Martin Construction built it in Mornington, and the Eastlands centre never happened.
If we ever experiened an upswing in bowler numbers again to the point where we had 1500+ registered bowlers again (its about 400 at present), and social play became affordable to everybody, I wonder where you'd build a second centre in Hobart? Kingston perhaps?
